The battle finally began after half a month of intense preparations. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Of course, this does not mean that all the preparations have been prepared within half a month, in fact, there are still many deficiencies in the preparations, such as the lack of training of the 53rd Army and the 54th Army that followed up, and the equipment and fuel have not yet been in place.

But at this time, Zhang Chi and Halsey could not be allowed to continue to push back the plan......

On the one hand, this is because the war situation in China has deteriorated further, and the Japanese army has forced into Guangxi, and one step further is the airports of Guizhou and Liuzhou.

You must know that these two airports are the docking places of the US B29 bombers, and the US military has been using these two airports to carry out shock bombing on the Japanese mainland...... Needless to say, Guangxi is too far away from the Japanese mainland, even a long-range strategic bomber like the B29 can only bomb a limited area of the Japanese mainland, and the bombs carried by the B29 must be transported from Burma or India around a large circle through the China-Burma road to arrive, so the effect of the bombing is very limited.

Although the effect is limited and with the deployment of the U.S. B29 in the Mariana Islands and even Iwo Jima at this time, the role of the airports in Guizhou and Liuzhou has lost its role for the U.S. military, but its strategic significance to the national army is not trivial, because it means that the national army will lose an important support point that can threaten the Japanese mainland and carry out strategic coordination with the U.S. military.

As a result, President Chiang repeatedly sent telegrams urging the Chinese troops to launch an offensive as soon as possible.

On the other hand, due to the large number of troops and equipment amassed by the Sino-US coalition forces on Iwo Jima...... It is not that the Japanese army's reconnaissance methods are so powerful, but that the actions of the Sino-US coalition are too great, and there are transport planes and bombers, as well as a large number of warships and transport ships coming and going, and it is difficult for the Japanese army to find out even if they don't want to.

Of course, the Japanese army did not know that these actions were actually aimed at northeast China, and they always believed that the Sino-US coalition forces were preparing for an attack on Okinawa Island, so they hurriedly transferred a group of troops from Korea to Okinawa Island to garrison it.

Roosevelt was reluctant again, and he sent a telegram to Halsey, complaining: "If you don't attack again, the Japanese will transfer all their troops to Okinawa!" ”

Halsey had no choice but to look at Zhang Chi helplessly.

Zhang Chi also knew that it was time to attack, but he was not under pressure from China and the United States...... Fighting a war is a thing that should be done as it should be, and the pressure given by anyone should be ignored.

However, what Zhang Chi couldn't resist was the casualty reports from China...... So far, the casualties of the national army are estimated to have reached more than 200,000. The reason why I use "estimate" here is that many troops are on the run, and there is no way to count them, and of course the exact number of casualties is not known.

What makes Zhang Chi's heart hurt even more is that in addition to the more than 200,000 yuan...... Countless civilians were also ravaged by the Japanese army. Of course, the number of dead and wounded people cannot be counted, but what can be counted is that the number of people in the areas occupied by the Japanese army, that is, under the control of the Japanese army, has reached more than 30 million.

So Zhang Chi no longer hesitated, nodded, and said, "It's time to do it!" ”

The opening remarks were not as powerful as expected, mainly because Zhang Chi was unwilling to expose his strategic goals prematurely...... Being able to reveal their intentions as late as possible means that their troops have more time to prepare and attack, and time is extremely important for a "blitzkrieg".

Therefore, Zhang Chi still adopted the method of confusing the Japanese army, using Okinawa Island to mislead the Japanese army as much as possible.

So Okinawa was the first to start...... Zhang Chi dispatched more than 50 B29 planes to carry out a series of wanton and indiscriminate bombardment of Okinawa's airports and ports.

On the other hand, ten submarines were dispatched into the Yellow Sea to attack any Japanese merchant ship or even warship that traveled between Japanese and Chinese ports...... U.S. submarines rarely attacked Japanese warships because it increased the risk of the submarine being sunk. However, so far in the war, the Japanese army has basically lost its role in aircraft carriers and the main naval force is in the Philippines, and submarines have not lost an option to attack Japanese warships.

The results of the battle soon came from the front, and the US submarines "Sea Carp" and "Minnow" respectively sank a Japanese destroyer escorting the transport ship, and the "Sea Carp" also seriously damaged a Japanese heavy cruiser "Takao" with four torpedoes, forcing it to return to the battlefield and withdraw from the battlefield.

The rest of the submarines were also successful, each sinking several Japanese merchant ships...... To some extent, the growth experience of the US submarine force is very similar to that of the US military pilots.

Because of the safety and protection of fighter planes, many US pilots have survived once, twice, or even three times when a fighter plane is shot down. At this point, the Japanese pilots were very sad and often had a chance.

The U.S. submariners, on the other hand, generally do not go head-to-head with Japanese warships because they use correct tactics, makes the casualty rate of submariners very small...... In the early days, the poor performance of the US submarines was largely due to defective torpedoes, and this precisely gave the US submariners more opportunities to temper, and by the middle and late stages, they were almost all veterans, so it was very easy to fight the Japanese army, whose strength had obviously declined.

At this time, the Chinese fleet also passed through the Miyako Strait and reached the waters of the East China Sea, stinging ...... To be exact, this is a detachment of the Chinese fleet, and the only aircraft carrier "Pinghai" and six Fletcher-class destroyers are dispatched.

It was still quite difficult for the Japanese army to discover this detachment, because the fleet was naturally equipped with sea-to-air radars, which could detect and dispatch "Hellcat" fighters and bombers in advance to destroy the Japanese reconnaissance units before they were discovered.

The Chinese fleet was waiting for the opportunity, waiting for the Japanese Qingdao fleet to be dispatched......

The task of the Japanese Qingdao Fleet was to ensure the smooth flow of sea routes in the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea.

Zhang Chi believed that when so many enemy submarines were found in the Yellow Sea area and the safety of the shipping lanes was seriously affected, the Japanese Qingdao Fleet should also be dispatched.

This trick is called the snake dispatch...... If a fleet or fighter planes were sent to bomb or attack the port of Qingdao, the cost would probably be greater, and this action would also arouse the suspicion of the Japanese army.

But if the Japanese fleet is lured out to fight, it may be a different matter.

Sure enough, when the U.S. submarine sank more than a dozen Japanese transport ships again, the Japanese Qingdao fleet was dispatched. (To be continued.) )